As well known in the art, a cooling system includes various machines such as a refrigerator, an air conditioner, etc. Each cooling system has a number of components including an evaporator, a compressor, a condenser and an expansion valve. The cooling system circulates coolant through a cooling cycle in order to obtain cold air through contact between coolant and air. In the cooling cycle, compressed gaseous coolant of high temperature and pressure from the compressor is cooled in the condenser and converts into liquid coolant. Liquid coolant is decompressed while passing through the expansion valve, and via heat exchange with indoor air in the evaporator, evaporated to gaseous coolant of low temperature and pressure, which is sucked again into the compressor so that the cooling cycle can be performed repeatedly. In the evaporator, coolant deprives air of heat via heat exchange to generate cold air, which is used to carry out freezing, refrigeration, cooling, and so on.
The condenser is an important component for condensing high temperature and pressure gaseous coolant from the compressor into liquid. An air cooling type condenser is typically used, in which a number of fins are mounted on a heat transfer pipe for enabling coolant to flow therethrough and a condenser fan is disposed in the front of the condenser so that the ambient air forcibly introduced by the condenser fan can perform heat exchange with coolant flowing through the heat transfer pipe.
However, in the case where the cooling system is applied in a region having a large value of annual temperature variation and a large value of daily temperature gap during change of seasons, the area of the condenser is generally designed based upon the highest ambient temperature to increase an average heat transfer area. This structure is suitable in terms of condensation efficiency in the summer where ambient air temperature is high. However, in the winter where ambient air temperature is low, the condenser may be unnecessarily large since sufficient condensation effect can be realized even with a substantially small heat transfer area. As the condenser becomes unnecessarily large, there are many problems in that the cost for raw material rises, it is difficult to handle the condenser, the condenser occupies a large installation space, and power consumption is increased.
In view of these problems, the condenser can be designed as a water cooling or evaporative type. However, the water cooling condenser requires a sufficient amount of water to increase the volume of the cooling system while creating risk of freezing and breaking in the winter. The evaporative condenser also increases its volume as outer area necessary for installation of an evaporator and/or related components is increased. The evaporative condenser having a small volume makes it difficult to install.